Strawberry Hills

Kananaskis, AB, Canada

7 March 2021

With Richard

Easy winter hillwalking

The Strawberry Hills have never been high on my to-do list, but I think they deserve more attention as a winter/early season trip idea. Richard and I quite enjoyed this hike and we actually were a lot more tired at the end of it than we had anticipated, mostly because of super strong winds whipping us around on the upper ridges.

The approach via the trail on the north side of Coyote Hills avoids having to cross the Highwood River (the second approach is from the Fitzsimmons Creek parking lot). It’s mostly a plod through the forest, with the exception of a large clearing that grants a very picturesque view of Junction Hill with beaver dams of the Highwood River in the foreground. This trail is fairly popular with hikers and we were glad to hike on compacted snow instead of breaking trail.

There are many possible routes to the various high points of the Strawberry Hills, none of them with actual trails but all easy. We went up the broad east ridge and traversed over four little high points, the last one being the true summit. One stretch of forest on the way up the second high point slowed us down with knee-deep snow, then there was another patch of soft snow to get up to the final top. Everything else was lovely hiking on mostly open grassy slopes.

After huddling in a semi-sheltered spot away from the fierce winds near the summit we made our way down the open south ridge back to the trail along Fitzsimmons Creek and closed the loop.

Elevation:

1961 m

Elevation gain:

710 m

Time:

5 h

Distance:

14.6 km

Difficulty level:

Easy (Kane), T2 (SAC)

Reference:

Daffern

Personal rating:

3 (out of 5)

DOWNLOAD ROUTE (GPX FILE)

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The Strawberry Hills as seen from the bridge over the High River on Hwy 933.
The initial approach in the forest.
Heading up the eastern slopes.
Great views of Holy Cross Mountain further east.
Mount McPhail on the Continental Divide.
The Coyote Hills are to the south.
No snowshoes needed today despite quite a bit of snow on east-facing slopes.
Gently rolling hills make for easy hiking terrain.
Walking up to one of several summits.
Looking SE towards Highwood Junction, Coyote Hills on the right.
K-Country Front Ranges to the east.
This is another smaller hill that stands separate to the north. The rounded snow-covered bump in the back is The Hill of the Flowers.
Mount Armstrong (R) and Mount McPhail make a terrific backdrop to the walk up the main summit.
We headed a little further north to find a sheltered spot to take a break.
This is as far as we got. You could easily continue further north, but the snow cover was pretty thick here.
Heading down the south spur.
A nice view of Junction Hill on the way back.

In this section

Kananaskis Allsmoke Mountain Ben’s Hill Blue Ridge Bluerock Mountain Bull Creek Hills Cat Creek Hills & Stony Ridge Channel Ridge Commonwealth Peak Compression Ridge Cox Hill Coyote Hills Cummings Ridge East End of Rundle Etherington-Baril Ridge (Three Cairns) Forgetmenot Ridge & Mountain Gilligan Peak Glasgow North & Garriochmill Peak Green Mountain Gunnery Mountain Ha Ling Peak & Miner’s Peak Hailstone Butte, Sentinel Peak & Iron Creek Mountain Heart Mountain Hell’s Ridge Highwood Peak Hill of the Flowers Holy Cross Mountain Hood, Mount Horton Hill & Horton Ridge Iyarhe Ipan, Swany’s Ridge & Quirk Ridge Jumpingpound Mountain Kidd South, Mount Link Hill & Vents Ridge Little Lougheed Lookout Range to Mount Burke Lusk Ridge Mesa Butte Missinglink Mountain Mist Mountain Mist Ridge Moose Mountain Mount Barwell Mount Bogart Mount Bryant Mount Burns East Peak (attempt) Mount Denny & Mount Potts Mount Dyson Mount Evan-Thomas Mount French & Mount Jellicoe Mount Head Mount Howard Mount James Walker Mount Lorette & Skogan Peak Mount Lougheed I Mount Mann Mount McPhail Mount Muir Mount Quirk Mount Remus Mustang Hills Odlum Ridge Old Baldy Mountain Opal Ridge South Opal Ridge Traverse Packenham Junior Pasque Mountain Pigeon Mountain Pocaterra Ridge Powderface Ridge Powderface Ridge (south route) Prairie Mountain Raspberry Ridge Red Peak Red Ridge Running Rain Peak & Mount Odlum Serendipity Peak & Patterson’s Peak Seventy Buck & Eagle Hill Ship’s Prow Mountain Shunga-la-she & Jägermeister Peak Snow Peak Storelk Mountain Strawberry Hills The Orphan Tower, The Volcano Ridge Windtower Windy Point Ridge & Gleason Ridge Yates Mountain Zephyr Creek Hills

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